Viola Keats

Biography

Although Viola Keats never achieved national stardom she was a popular actress on the West End stage and in British films from the 1930s to the 1970s. Born in Worthing, Sussex, she studied acting at RADA where in 1933 she won the Bancroft Gold Medal. She made her professional debut at the Liverpool Playhouse the same year with the repertory company appearing as Sarah in Easy Virtue. She quickly switched to film roles and appeared in a host of low budget crime capers. During the 1940s she was a regular voice in BBC radio drama and in the 1950s she toured Australia in several plays, notably as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire and Diana Hartland in Down Came a Blackbird. Throughout the 1960s and 70s she played a variety of character roles on the West End stage including Lady Frinton in Aren't We All? (1967), the mother in Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1972) and Mrs Culver in The Constant Wife (1975). She was regularly picked out by critics for her stylish and quirky acting. She married first, to the actor Harold Petersen and, secondly, to William Kellner.